A Little Death
by cavanaughtobias
Summary: They breathed in each other's souls until there was nothing there but their ablaze bodies, naked as they came, a mixture of blood, alcohol and something he wouldn't admit and she wouldn't allow herself to feel pumping through their veins with fervor.


_**A/N:**_ I suck at writing fanfiction. I really do. I never know what I'm doing, but I hope you'll like whatever it is. As usual, forgive me any vocabulary/grammar mistakes, since English is not my mother tongue :)

* * *

New York. The city that never sleeps. She liked it. She liked its towering skyscrapers, kaleidoscopic flashing lights, people always in rush wasting their precious time held up in endless traffic jams. The atmosphere it all created, so different from her hometown. She craved the anonymity it offered - it made her feel safe, secure. She was no longer Spencer Hastings, but one of many millions of citizens, her face nothing but a blurred window reflection, mingling with strobe lights and her distilled breath.

"What are you thinking of? Coming up with a new mathematical theorem? Golden ratio and such?", one of her colleagues approached her, handing her over a tall cocktail glass with a fancy decoration in a form of a tiny, metallic palm imitation. "Want some?"

She studied the mysterious, pinkish liquid for a second, with a questioning look on her face. "Sex on the beach", he informed, noticing her hesitation. "Cranberry, pineapple, and as they say, take a sip of Hawaii. Hawaiian sex on the beach, I guess it explains the palm tree."

"Oh, I see. How exotic", she smirked, wrapping her slim fingers around the glass. She wasn't really fond of pineapples, and the drink he had chosen for her would've certainly never been her drink of choice, but it was still extremely thoughtful of him to save her from boredom, so she couldn't find it in herself to turn it down.

"Try cliché. But focus on the taste, it's amazing."

She gave him a timid smile and carefully wetted her lips with the liquor, leaving a single lipstick stain on the rim of the glass. Much to her surprise it actually did taste good, at least enough for her to take another two, this time more generous sips. They stood like that in utter silence, on the twenty-something floor of some five-star hotel, trying to isolate themselves as much as they could from muffled business conversations carried out by so-called people of success dressed in tailor-made suits and Gucci shoes. Spencer tried her best to recall her companion's name, but somehow her brain wasn't eager to cooperate. Staring at him intensively, she wanted to jog her memory, but yet again her attempts turned out to be futile. All she gathered, when their eyes met, was the unusual color of his irises, so hauntingly, purely blue that she wondered if he wore lenses. Just then she realized she'd never asked him about his name, though.

"What are you drinking?", asked she, trying to mask her earlier examination of him.

Startled by this sudden question, he bit his lower lip in order to give himself more time to collect his thoughts. "Martini. Shaken, not stirred."

She arched her eyebrows and not a second later burst into laughter. "Aye, James Bond! Or should I say, Bond, James Bond? Talking about cliché. I'm going to call you Bond from now on", she winked playfully at him, amused with her own sarcastic remark.

He chuckled lightly, laughter lighting up his features. She noticed how his nose gently crinkled just when his smile reached his eyes, and found it really adorable. In all honesty, he indeed was handsome - maybe not your typical definition of it, but there was something in him that attracted her. Everything about him seemed to be nothing but sincere, his smile, his words, his attitude, and above all, those soft, baby blue eyes. If eyes were indeed the mirror of one's soul, then his would be pure, the kind of lucidity the envy of a wintry dawn. With arms broad and frame statuesque, she felt as if he had all the strength to carry the burden of her world, never letting her slip away from him. Maybe there was indeed another source of strength and stability than the one she'd chosen, and for a minute she was sure he could provide her with it. But the more she thought about it, the more was she uncertain of the clarity of her own thoughts, her mind already curled over by an alcoholic haze.

"I need another drink. Never have I taken a part in a more boring business meeting. Never ever", she complained, fidgeting with her glass, somehow trying to avoid his gaze.

"We can go to my suite", he suddenly offered, but after a moment blushed slightly, regretting his bravado. He wondered if he wasn't being too straightforward, maybe a little too pushy even, lacking delicacy. But offering her a drink that happened to be called "Sex on the Beach" and then inviting her over to hang out in his hotel apartment, he felt like a big bad wolf, luring her perfidiously into his cave of harlotry. Even though in reality he just wanted to spend some time with a person he considered his new friend.

She seemed to be having an inner struggle, with her eyebrows furrowed and gaze lowered, which made him feel even more embarrassed. Trying to save his dignity or what remained of it, he started rambling just to explain himself and fill the silence. "Only if you want to, that is. I mean, we are both bored beyond belief, so why not? We could chat and watch TV or anything you feel like doing, you've already been to my room anyway. There is just nothing to do here and I'd considered leaving until I saw you and..."

"Shush Bond, stop talking. I know you have a license to kill but keep it for later and stop murdering me with your verbal diarrhoea. I'd love to go with you to your room, to watch TV and chat. And anything I feel like doing", she smiled, nodding her head to emphasize her agreement. He was so relieved he even let a soft sigh escape his mouth, which made her smile broaden to a grin. The way he acted right now, so careful not to make her uneasy, was something she hadn't experienced coming from a guy in a long time, and doubted in it still existing. Given the fact that he was usually acting laid-back and confident, probably as a result of him being a psychologist, somehow made it even more special...

Shit. As if she needed to get all mushy right now.

"Okay, so we'd better get going, I can't stand this place any longer", she hurried him, heading straight to the door.

"Wait!", he exclaimed, causing her to stop and turn around to face him. And then he looked into a mini-bar, examining its contents, and carefully taking a bottle of red wine from it. He raised it up, waving it from right to left and then from left to right, smiling goofily.

Spencer narrowed her eyes in bewilderment, and with her mouth gaping, it took her a few seconds to form any answer to that. "You must be kidding me", she breathed. "Are you seriously gonna steal a bottle of wine?"

He rolled his eyes, looking at her as if she'd just said that the Earth was flat. "It's not theft if it's already been paid for it? Someone's gonna drink it anyway, besides this wine is way too good to be wasted on such snobs."

Just then another view caught her eye. A figure dressed in flowing, eggplant velvet gown was sitting cross-legged across the room, a glass of champagne in one hand, embracing possessively her partner with another. When she noticed Spencer staring at her, she tightened the grip, caressing her companion's designer tuxedo. Her eyes started gleaming dangerously, pupils constricted, beleaguered by mingling emerald-ocher hues of her orbs, swirling as if the most venomous snakes, ready to attack. A confident smirk on her face was screaming rivalry, and just then she knew that the gauntlet had already been thrown down. There was no way she would let her sworn enemy, Mona Vanderwaal, indulge in her victory and watch her standing there, defeated and pathetic, while triumphantly groping her ex-boyfriend Andrew Campbell's knee under the table.

"You know what? On a second thought, we can as well take two", she said, and then took another bottle from the mini-bar, which he commented with a chuckle. By the time they'd left the room they were both laughing, as if the bottles they were carrying had already been emptied.

* * *

They were sitting on the fluffy, beige carpet in his apartment, with legs stretched and backs leaned on the leather coach. Even though the lights were turned off, the whole room was lit by diffused, inky-cyanic light of the TV screen, making their skin seem pallid and as if blue with cold, despite the wine rushing through their veins and chemistry building up between them.

"Tell me something about yourself", asked he suddenly.

"You want me to tell you my life story? Because I'm still half a bottle away from it", she teased, taking a slug of liquor.

He tilted his head back and sighed deeply, shrugging his shoulders. "I just... I seem to know you but then I don't, y'know? It's like, you think you know people but you never really do. You have no idea what dark secrets people tell me sometimes, thinking I'll cure them straight away, as if by waving some magic wand or whatsoever. But the truth is, I ain't no Harry Potter the wizard, and no _avada kedavra_ works if they do not show any willingness and cooperation, y'know?"

The room filled with her exuberant laughter, and she soon ended up lying on the floor, crawling and holding her stomach. "I... I thought a psychologist was to prevent people from committing suicide but... but I guess... I guess I was wrong?", she choked out, chuckling. "I'm so gonna think twice before seeing any!"

"Whatever", he rolled his eyes, still not having a clue what she meant, which made her burst into cachinnate. "Hey! I want to laugh too!"

"Okie dokie", she said, her previous fit of laughter still audible in her voice. "So... I have a sister. Melissa.", she scowled at the sound of the name, her eyes narrowing, and he already knew they weren't much fond of each other. "Anyway, Melissa and I are so much alike that we never get along. Like, our relationship is a sequence of squabbles, interrupted from time to time by dead silences and sarcastic comments. And, during one of our quarrels, she didn't let me join her to watch a movie, claiming that I was too young to watch it, too much of a coward and whatnot, even though she was just four years older and the one who still slept with the lights on, damn she wasn't even allowed to watch it herself, she just stole it from our parents' bedroom without their permission! Anyway, of course I didn't listen to her, and I was peeping through the door the whole movie, watching her squeaking and hugging her teddy bear when that creepy Samara chick got out of the well. Damn, it was so entertaining... So I decided to give her a dose of her own medicine and, dressed in a white nightgown with my face covered by my hair, entered her room."

"Oh my God!", exclaimed he with a huge grin on his face. "I can't believe you did that!"

"Well you should because I totally did! I will never forget her facial expression once she saw me... Those goggly eyes filled with terror, and her long, blood-chilling shriek... which happened to awake our parents. We both got grounded, but it was worth it. She even peed herself, I was so happy...", she sighed, and by the time she'd finished her little story, he already joined her in lying on the carpet and laughing at the top of his lungs. "Okay, now it's my turn! So... tell me about your first kiss."

"Whoa", he began. "It was actually really lame? It was like, two years after I moved here, I guess I was just 8. Her name was Abby Bennett, she was short, quite chubby, and she had blonde, curly hair. I remember her lips tasted like cotton candy and strawberry yogurt gummies. I would've never kissed her if not the spinning bottle game we were playing. Abby and I never exchanged a word after that."

"Poor Abby! I bet she dreamt about you every night. I bet she named her Ken doll after you!"

"Sooooo much for avoiding me! What's your favorite season?", he asked, as it was the first question that popped up in his mind.

"Uh... I won't be much original here, but summer. Favorite subject when you were at school?"

"Chemistry. Favorite animal?"

"A cat. Favorite place you've been to?"

"Paris. Favorite color?"

She locked her eyes with his, studying them yet again. The silvery half-light intensified their color even more, that it seemed almost inhuman. All the stars they held turned into constellations, constellations into nebulas, nebulas into universes, and that's when she knew she was in too deep, too high in the sky of these two glimmering orbs.

"Cerulean blue", she purred, and it was everything they needed to fill the space between them with soft touches, feverish kisses, a frantic yet somehow graceful medley of legs and hands, thighs and fingers, seeking lips praying for salvation. They breathed in each other's souls until there was nothing there but their ablaze bodies, naked as they came, a mixture of blood, alcohol and something he wouldn't admit and she wouldn't allow herself to feel pumping through their veins with fervor. She made a symphony of his moans and he made a sanctuary in her mouth, worshipping every inch of her alabastrine skin. Greedy eyes, impatient lips, her heart closed, her legs open, his soul torn apart, but his mind too numb to acknowledge it.

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_**A/N:** _Okay, so I hope it wasn't that bad? :) I'll try to update it as soon as possible, but considering the fact that I'm busy all the time (school sucks, man, and senior year sucks twice that much), it'll probably take me some time. If I only could, I'd ditch school and just write it for you, but only lucky ones get paid for it ;) Liked it? Review it, it'll surely make me smile and give me some writing motivation :)


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